NCAA Division II regional basketball rankings won’t be out for another week but the Cal Poly Pomona women seem like a sure bet to occupy the top spot.

The No. 16 Broncos (17-3, 14-2) are the only team in the West Region ranked nationally. Coach Danelle Bishop’s team has a three-game lead over its closest pursuers in the conference and the top teams in the other West conferences have twice as many losses as the Broncos.

The top spot in the region is important because it is that team that gets the opportunity to host the eight-team regional tournament in which the Elite Eight representative will be decided.

Bishop isn’t letting her team dwell on that though.

“We’re not focusing on it because it’s not something we can control. We’re just trying to keep winning and the rest of that stuff will take care of itself. We still have six games left and we have to be ready because we’re getting every team’s best shot.”

The Broncos will play four of their last six on the road. This weekend they will travel to Sonoma State and San Francisco State.

Cal Poly Pomona boasts the top two scorers in the conference in junior guard Ariel Marsh (16.8 ppg) and junior center Jada Blackwell (16.7 ppg). Both are locals with Marsh out of Ayala and Blackwell out of Etiwanda. Blackwell also ranks second in rebounding (8.9 pg) while Marsh is third in 3-point percentage (39.6). It is the 1-2 punch the team was missing last year with Marsh redshirting due to injury and Blackwell transferring in from Arizona State.

“We have gotten contributions from everybody,” Bishop said. “Obviously Jada and Ariel get most of the attention but the other girls have picked their spots and are very capable of scoring and making plays as well. We have a lot of balance.”

National exposure

The Cal State San Bernardino women’s basketball team will have its 11 a.m. game at Cal State Monterey Bay on Saturday televised nationally by CBS Sports Network. The most compelling of many story angles will be the return of Coyotes coach Renee Jimenez, who directed the Monterey program to national prominence the previous five years. This will be her first trip back since resigning that post to take the other last summer.

“We’re going to take it like any other game but there is definitely a different dynamic,” she said. “This really is a great opportunity for both of us to showcase our teams and our schools so we’re excited about it.”

The scheduling of the game so early makes for a different week for the Coyotes, who returned late Sunday from a pair of road games in Northern California.

They will head to the Bay Area on Wednesday, with the first game of the road trip scheduled for Cal State East Bay on Thursday. That game would normally be played on Friday but Jimenez would only agree to the Saturday morning game if that Friday night game was changed.

“I was not going to do that to my team,” she said. “That’s really not enough time to try and get ready to play again.”

The Coyotes are just 4-14 overall and 3-13 in CCAA play but have been on the wrong end of some competitive games. They lost to nationally ranked Cal Poly Pomona a week ago in overtime and lost to Chico State on Saturday 74-72. They have eight losses by single digits.

When the teams played earlier this year at Coussoulis Arena the Coyotes prevailed 47-46.

The game can be seen on Dish Network Channel 158, Direct TV 221, Charter Communications 411 and 786, Time Warner 261 and 474, Verizon Fios 94 and ATT U-verse 643 and 1643.

SBVC players decide

Two soccer players from San Bernardino Valley College have decided their next step.

Midfielder Maria Navarro, a product of Ontario High School, is headed to Cal Poly Pomona while defender Basha Greer, a product of Valley View, will attend Humboldt State. The schools play in the same conference so they’ll be squaring off against each other at the next level.

Navarro was named first-team All-Foothill Conference, scoring nine goals with seven assists, including two game-winning goals. Navarro was also named to the 2012 All-Foothill Conference first team.

Greer was an integral part of anchoring a defense that put together 12 shutouts, including four straight from Nov. 1-12.

Michelle Gardner has covered high school sports and local colleges for the Daily Bulletin and Sun since 2002. She previously covered a wide variety of sports from the high school level to the professional ranks in Florida with tenures at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Naples Daily News and the Fort Myers News-Press and is graduate of the University of Florida.

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